


The Subtle Art of Christmas

by basically_thearlaich



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Changing POVs, Christmas fic, Cooking, Danny's small apartment, Five-Ohana's First Christmas, Fluffy, Gen, Irish-Italian Danny, Magical Danny, Magical Realism, Original Characters - Freeform, magic is a subtle art and there are only subtle hints of it, season 1-ish, sort of a throwback, this is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basically_thearlaich/pseuds/basically_thearlaich
Summary: While he has watched – every single movement of hand and turn of spoon – Danny has created much more than just food.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	The Subtle Art of Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I just read _one_ H50 fic and then... (and then it became a few hundred and like 7 seasons of the series itself)... this happened. So deal with this. Please. I think.

+++

They’re busy with a _case_ when the whisper comes. The… _need_ for it. _Soothe_ – it hushes.

It susurrates until it becomes a cry in his ears and a pain in his head and Danny realizes why it is that, sometimes (most of the time), Nonetta and Francesca had been the quickest hands at finding generic pain pills for anyone in need. (Looks like he’s going to have to invest in that particular family-trait himself in the future.)

 _Alright_ , he thinks – beaten and annoyed by it. _Alright. What do I need?_

Sean is… Sean is nothing short of a lifesaver, which is why it’s easy to invite him for some grub as a thank-you, even if the vendor says his sorry-thank-yous quickly in favor of dining in with the part of his family that had come looking for some tropical relief and their wayward fisher.

“Make it some Jack sometime?” he offers and Danny snorts.

“Don’t make me suffer that swill,” he laughs, launches his own counter-proposal: “Start me off with Dew, let’s see where we’ll end.”

He grins at the cackle from the other end of the line and Sean’s hearty “That a boy! _Tá mo chara!_ ”.

Putting together one of Nonetta’s specials on short notice while, simultaneously, busy with apprehending non-negligible perps – in league with _Hesse_ of all things – is… It should be more stressful, he thinks, when he bags just _precisely_ the veg and herbs he’d needed – _50 per-cent off_ because shops close for the 25th.

Steve gives him a _look_ after he’d lifted it into the cooler in his trunk but doesn’t comment on it and Danny is still too busy with the pounding in his head – receding, but still _present_ – than to bother much with his partner. Steve, bless him, picks up on the topic of their case instead and they’re back and forth until they’re pulling up to the palace where he smoothly transitions the perishables as well as the cooling-batteries to the freezer and makes himself a memo on his phone to take it home later.

The SEAL outright _laughs_ at him, later, when he quick-staples the suit within _minutes_ and then… shuts up, quickly, intent and curious, when Danny pulls up in front of the chest in his kitchen and _stills_.

“I need you to not disturb me while I cook,” he says quietly – pulling the unlit Burning Bowl close. Danny is careful of smoothing is face into something he hopes approaches the seriousness he needs for this to get through to Steve.

He knows his partner and he loves him like a brother. Sometimes Steve can be incredibly Sensitive to the right moments. And then other times, he’s about as open as a diamond. This time, Danny needs him to understand and he watches for the _click_ behind Steve’s eyes before his partner nods.

Only then does he pull the chest open, pulls out the herbs that make his fingertips tingle and lights it before he ducks into the smoke – turning his back on the material world.

 _Family_ , he thinks, when he prepares the trout. Thinks of Grace who will be here later – because Rachel had been convinced to let him have at least a few hours on Christmas Eve with his daughter while she would get all of the 25th. He thinks of Chin’s neck in a collar. Thinks of 5-0 and of Steve’s _Champ_ Box. He thinks of the first day he’s met Steve, of socking him in the jaw and thinks of the same man turning up at Meka’s funeral because ‘he meant a lot to you and that’s all I need to know’. He thinks of the ceremony for their rookie – hushed and familial and all the more precious for it.

 _Healing_ , he chants in his mind while he cuts the vegetables for the soup and stirs just right the right amount. Remembers Chin’s strained relationship with his family. Thinks of Steve’s own family-debacle. He thinks of his own rift between Rachel and him and the family that is miles and miles over the sea. He thinks, too, of Kono’s amused snort. Thinks of Steve’s ‘Danno don’t surf’ and all the Pidgin nonsense the team would engage in if private discussions would get heated, leaving him with no clue and part-amused-part-aggravated at the disaster it looked and sounded when they would.

He thinks mostly of Grace when he repeats _Sweetness_ like a mantra, while he whisks the egg-whites into stiffness before adding sugar and then chocolate. Thinks of ‘I’m Uncle Chin’ the first time his colleagues met Grace.

And then he finds himself sitting with three open projects on his hearth and in his oven and still… _still_ his fingers drum restlessly against his thigh while he mentally sorts through the ingredients he knows are somewhere in his kitchen, looking for _something_.

It’s when his eyes stick on the soft, close to over-ripening fruit in his basket that his chest lurches with the perfect idea.

 _Mele Kalikimaka_ , rings in his mind with every stir of his ladle. Once, twice, thirteen times and then up to ninety-nine as he adds fruit and juice and sugar and puts a part away for Grace with a quiet _Mele Kalikimaka keiki, Mahalomahalomahalo_ full of love before he pours the wine and a bit of rum into the rest and stirs for another ninety-nine times with a steady thrum of _Mahalomahalomahalo_.

* * *

Kono has found Chin dithering in his living room, hands at his sides, eyes firmly on the silent landline just a handful of steps away from him – as if forgetting the smartphone in his back-pocket. Even after calling his name it had taken a moment to get his attention, to get his eyes on her. It has taken her a few more tries until she’d felt he’s actually present with her, though with Chin it’s… difficult to know whether he is truly here instead of running spec ops in the back of his mind. (It had been football stats in a time when everything had been beautiful and nothing had hurt except the occasional scrape.)

“Car’s running, cuz. Don’t make me pollute our beautiful country.”

It’s a lie, of course. Kono has been taught better than to keep the car running for private occasions. On-duty she’d think twice about turning off the motor but it’s different off duty. Chin would know – given that he’d been the one cousin who’d gotten it into her head that birds and flowers were dying because she forgot to turn off the motor.

Nevertheless, he takes the out. Gives her a smile that says nothing yet.

“Five hummingbirds on your conscious, Kono,” he teases, but sets into motion. Kono doesn’t move until he’s passed her and she can herd him towards the door.

“It’ll be more if you don’t move it,” she heckles. “And then we’ll have to share their souls on our conscious and you know how I am about _sharing_.”

Chin huffs, but accepts the click of his door behind their backs. “Only-child.”

“And spoilt for it,” she reminds him with a quirk to her lips, “Always get what I want.” By then, he’s already in her passenger seat and doesn’t comment when she has to turn the ignition first.

* * *

Steve hasn’t even left to wash up.

Only taken to the Camaro and his stashed Go-Bag, next to Danny’s, to switch into a set of clothing that hasn’t seen the bloody face of a perp and the close-up of some truly dusty gravel since its last wash.

Danno’s home is small.

Every sound carries and during his wash, the knocking pipes in the walls don’t even have the generosity to spit anything else but lukewarm water. It’s a terrible sign, he thinks as he scrubs, of spoilage on himself that he feels irritated for the inconvenience. He remembers showers on unnameable ships that hadn’t even been able to give that much. But the shower in his own home – the solar-heated water from the age-old tank – always runs beautifully hot on the first try and he hasn’t had to suffer the indignity of a lukewarm, soft-pressure shower in a while.

Stepping under the aged shower-head, Steve consigns himself to a couple of cold showers in the future. If only not to lose his edge. Not to lose the gratefulness for what he so readily has when others around the world do not.

It won’t hurt his bills either probably.

Or his carbon footprint.

Good reasons then!

Against his expectations, Danny doesn’t immediately press in after him, when he exits from the small room – white tiles almost eaten up by the single shower stall. Steve had bumped his elbows at least four times on the walls while drying and re-dressing. The room is a menace.

But when he comes out, Danny is subjecting his living room to a few last minute changes. Still, Steve thinks, in the strange head-space he’d sunken into when he’d turned from Steve and bent over the food.

He remembers the smell. From when Grace had come by while Danny had been with Steve. From when Danny had poured a feast into a bowl and home into his heart and it’s… a strangely intimate thing to see the process of food becoming more.

Steve is already in the living room again. Watching Danny folding up the couch and pulling out pillows and ground-seats where he can. He can already tell that Grace will have a seat of honor on the sofa.

“Anything I can help you with?”

Danny looks at him as if he’s forgotten him before he smiles. A different smile than those that Steve has seen before. This one is indulgent, is soft and genuinely happy. Unafraid and unbothered. _Christmassy_. Steve hadn’t thought Danny would have one like that in his repertoire. Goes to show how much he still has to learn about his partner.

“I think I’m all done,” he waves off instead, reaching for a large pot that Steve recognizes immediately – one that makes his shoulders drop before Danny has even poured into heavy, earthenware cup of tea for him and presses it into his waiting hands. He can already tell that this one is going to taste marvelous (and that he won’t taste it ever again).

“I wanna shower real quick, okay?” Danny says carefully when he’s gently pressed him down to sit on the couch, cup in hands. “If there’s anything you need to get off your chest, I can probably hear you through the wall. Or--” he reaches for a large, pink bunny at the other side of the sofa, “You can always divulge it to Mrs. Hoppy.”

“Mrs. Hoppy, huh?”

It’s not like Steve has forgotten about the first pink bunny that Danny had handed out to a curious girl that first time they’d gone to meet Kamekona. Or about the real-life bunny that Step-Stan had gifted to Grace much to his partner’s consternation. Danny, however, only shrugs self-conscious.

“Grace’s too smart for my own good and registered the presence of this beautiful, pink abomination and has asked, since, where Mrs. Hoppy is so--” he wiggles the big pink plush, “Meet Mrs. Hoppy.”

Steve hums in want of an answer, takes a sip and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, Danno is in already cursing up a storm in the shower and Mrs. Hoppy looks at him from his knees with big eyes.

“So,” he leans back then, looking at the plush, “Come by often?”

* * *

It’s a small procession that finds its way to Danny’s apartment.

Shamu is a surprise Danny doesn’t quite know how to parse, but even the big Hawaiian takes the cup with two hands and a surprised smile on his face when Danny pours him a cup. He only ever lays hands on the man when he tries to reach for Grace’s cup.

“Brah why’d’ju gi’me that cup? ‘s _tiny_. Look at mah fingas! You tryin’ to get’jor tableware destroyed?”

Danny, in his opinion, is very calm, and professional despite the fake beard itching on his cheeks and threatening to make him sneeze from under his nose, “That cup is for my baby-girl and if I see your meaty paws going for it again, we’ll have to rehash that case on that very odd perfume of your cousin. Could be the HPD got a serious case of termites and the documents got lost. Could be we’d have no evidence the case is closed. You know how the department is with computers.”

The big lug has the audacity to look shocked. “Go afta a man’s own _ohana_ , brah! Whazzat! _Haole’_ s got teeth man!”

A knock at the door announces more guests and Danny sends another look at the man, “Well this party wouldn’t even be if it weren’t for Grace. So fingers off the cup that’s meant for the Guest of Honor, huh?”

Kamekona is still grumbling when he turns his back to reach for the door, and, opening it, finds Kono, smiling brightly from half-a-step behind Chin, zen and a bit suspicious – as always. Danny very resolutely doesn’t think about two children missing from the Kelly-Kalakaua feast and, instead, pulls them in, answering their Hawaiian greetings with gentle ‘Merry Christmas to you’s before he deposits them in front of the table and – because Chin had been the first through the door he gets the first cup. Almost accepts it with one hand before the other one slides underneath the bottom of the cup, a life-time-habit of drinking tea _the proper way_ kicking in as he takes it from Danny.

Kono doesn’t even hesitate to take the cup with both hands before the cousins sink to the cushions almost as if synchronized, legs folding under them, hands cupped around their mugs. Kono’s eyes are still closed even as Chin makes a first tentative sip and she follows with an appreciative hum.

Danny is careful not to encroach into their space too much when he leans over the table and sets down a small bowl of fresh greens between them.

Mrs. Hoppy is still sitting on Steve’s knee.

“I know it’s a bit quiet in here, and if you wanna talk that’s okay. McGarrett has a new therapist,” he teases and, sure as a shot, Kono’s eyes draw to the pink plush.

“She come with certifications?”

“The best,” Steve nods. “Meet Mrs. Hoppy. Recently returned from a kidnapping when Detective Grace Williams discovered she’d gone missing a few months ago.”

“Months,” Chin looks impressed, “That’s gotta be one tough lady if she’s stayed alive that long.”

It hits a bit close to home, maybe. With their recent case, but as it stands, they’re saved by the bell.

“Ah,” Danny nods, reaching for the last cup, “that must be our Saving Grace here to deliver us from a stroppy mood.”

It turns out, that is exactly what it is.

* * *

While he has watched – every single movement of hand and turn of spoon – Danny has created much more than just _food_.

Grace, next to him, hums into her soup. Fingers artfully curved around her bowl so as not to burn against the hot temperature despite the fact that she’d forgone the spoon. It is not unlike the way Danny himself is eating and Steve smiles when he watches Kono observe, shrug and then go with the regional culture, ditching her spoon and gently sipping at the soup as the Williams do.

The heat of the dish pools in Steve’s stomach and down his back and he hasn’t noticed the chill that had settled under his skin, but as he spoons the soup and closes his eyes against the taste of it – the salt, the herbs, the potatoes, the carrots, the caraway – he thinks it must have been there a while. For the warmth of the soup to spread like the warmth of the sun over his skin after a deft swim.

By the time the trout comes, he has settled into the comfortable warmth that’s wrapped around them like a silencing blanket. He sits back next to Grace, Mrs. Hoppy contently between them, and watches as, haltingly at first and gaining more confidence as the dinner continues on, first Grace and then Chin and Kono start talking.

It’s about school. About the traditions of Grace’s school regarding the last days and the preparations they’d made in regard to Christmas before Chin hums pensively and remembers his own time in elementary. Reveals the one thing he is _no_ good at – paper-crafts, apparently – which had brought forward a short burst of melancholy before Kono had fixed it with a stare of determination and a soft exclamation how he’d been the one to teach her how to fold origami.

“That’s different,” Chin laughs, eyes hollow but willing to try. “I don’t have to cut anything. It’s just folding and folding and folding and…”

“Do you make good paper-planes?” Grace interjects, surreptitiously lipping at the last of her tea before she puts it down and reaches for her napkin to dab at the wetness around her mouth – a curious mix of both parent in that moment.

Kono crows: “Oho! Does he ever! Come on cuz, tell’er!”

Chin’s head ducks gently between his shoulders, sheepish but carefully proud of it when he looks Grace and launches into a story of when he’d landed his first internship sometime at seventeen – working as a coffee gofer and paper carrier and copier at a branch of HPD that had, since, relocated and folded into the big station.

“Back then, though, they had this floor on one of the bigger scrapers along Ala Wai River and we – a bunch of internees – thought we’d use the heat of the day and try our hands at thermal currents.”

Something rings with Steve and he takes a look at Grace, attentive but perhaps a bit young to understand the laws of thermodynamics – so he leans forward.

“You know how water evaporates when it’s hot?” he asks, Grace finding his eyes and nodding sagely. “So you know that water can become air, right? Like when Danno bent over the soup we saw all this steam.”

“Yeah,” she nods again. “So when it’s hot and the water evaporates, there are all these… steam-like clouds over the water. Just invisible. That’s thermal updraft.”

“Some birds use that too right?”

Christ she’s clever. Steve grins. “Sure. The process is a bit more complicated in aviation but… the principle is the same. So. Thermal is when water rises but is sort of invisible. You have to feel it a lot.”

Grace grins and turns back at Chin. “You wanted to ride invisible steam?”

Kono gurgles from her cup and Chin grins, bashful but fully entranced in the story now. “We wanted to see whose paper-plane could ride it the longest,” he corrects. “So there we sit. On the rooftop of this old scraper, lunch on the side, fingers half-greasy over the paper and eager to see whose glider goes the farthest.

“Now we didn’t know it at the time but… on that other side of the river was another official building. The one with all the labs and the offices of the higher ups. And our boss – the _big kahuna_ I mean – sat in a meeting with some big shots, windows open.

“And I, seventeen years old, let go of my paper-plane one building over, on the other side of the river and the thing _flies_. I mean it crossed the river right over, catching thermal lift and gliding along and along and along and-- right through that window and onto the forehead of my boss.”

Grace giggles at the image and even Steve can’t quite contain his grin, even as his hands reach up automatically, accepting the plate of fish Danny is handing out. Next to him Kamekona exclaims over the neatness of the dish. Kono’s eyes are still twinkling when she accepts her own plate.

“So you know, Chin does the best planes. And if you ever want to see a paper-plane cross a river, you gotta look for mean bosses first.”

* * *

It’s nothing, he concedes as he bends over the trout with fork and knife, like his family’s Christmases.

Smaller for one. Quieter. His vocal chords aren’t raw and agitated yet, even though they’re already on the second course and his shoulders aren’t black and blue from copious backslapping.

Instead, Grace and Kono are still sharing mirthful smiles over the small table in front of him, riding the tail-coats of his story as if pulled by a thermal uplift themselves and Chin can’t pinpoint the last time he’s let himself drop his facade long enough to recount that particular story.

The trout melts on his tongue, falls into the itty-bittiest of morsels at the vibration of his pleased hum, buttery and sweet and perfectly seasoned with something strange and just this side of not-local that he notices it before the taste slips into his gorge and the oily coating of the fish and the butter explodes in Rosemary-freshness on his tongue anew.

Kono’s eyes are closed next to him in a way he can’t remember her doing in a long while. It’s true he hasn’t been invited to any of his family’s feasts in years but… he remembers sixteen year old Kono, quietly sitting through the loudness of the dinners, focus inward and on the food, on the drink handed to her. Aunty always said she listened inside instead of outside. He watches her tongue work after her swallow, catching the last stray tastes of her first bite and when her eyes open, she’s still not quite here.

Her shoulder drops against his when he reaches for another piece of the dish and for a breath he leans back – solidifies the contact between them. Another reminder of their family dinners, when place would be a rare commodity and people near sat on each other to accommodate everyone.

There is, technically, more space around Danny’s home but – it’s a close thing. It is just enough, truly, for Danny to stand and sit, back to the door, while the rest of them have piled around the low, elongated coffee table, knees and arms touching with their movements. Brushes of warmth against the back of his hands, the stretch of his lower arm, the round of his shoulder. Kono’s hair tickles his neck if they tilt just so and for a second his throat closes around the sweet taste of the fish. Eyes burning with the bitter wish for a time-turner and the return to those times when he hadn’t even known that his days at the full tables would be numbered.

But then he opens his eyes and Mrs. Hoppy sits on his lap and--

“That’s very forward, ma’am,” he chastises, carefully clean hands turning the rabbit around on his lap. “I’m not certain I’m that kind of guy.”

Steve snorts, trying, futilely, not to let Grace see that he’s just managed to push some of the trout back out through his nose while Danny, long-suffering, put his fingers to the nose of his bridge.

“You’re all animals,” he moans, handing the man a napkin to clean himself up. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

“Hey,” Steve protests, arm weaving to indicate the plush on Chin’s lap, “’s not my fault Mrs. Hoppy is the wandering kind of gal. Clearly, I’m the injured party here.”

Grace giggles – understanding perhaps more than Danny would like, though maybe not everything entirely. Danny levels a glare at Steve that Chin remembers from his own mother whenever his father and uncle would get two fingers too deep into the eggnog and a few decibels too loud with their giggling chatter about lewd jokes that had his head turning even years later.

“Do not make my daughter’s innocent bunny into a deviant, Steven. I know where you live and I will exact terrible revenge,” he warns.

“Yeah?” Steve challenges, “Like what? You going to burn more frittatas in my kitchen?”

“Only if you buy more wrong parts _online_ for your trap of a vehicle,” he shoots back. “See if I bring you coffee again.”

“Oooooooh,” Kono sings from next to Chin. “Boss, better make that apology. We’re not ready for the nuclear fall-out of either of you without coffee.”

Chin snorts. “Speak for yourself,” he relishes in the loud exclamations around him, savors the sweet, melting softness of the fish when he picks up another piece and a bit of the potatoes, closing his eyes around his full mouth and humming around the taste. Kono’s hair tickles his neck and Kamokona’s knee bumps against his and the bowl warms his hands and Grace is quietly acquiescing that ‘Danno without coffee is scary’.

* * *

It’s when desert comes around that Danno refills their cups. Most of them are empty of the soothing tea he’d dealt them when they’d first come through the door and Grace is grateful for the soup that had made it easier not to have a drink at hand for the second course but there is something different about the dark, perfumed brew Danno hands her in her earthenware mug – the second of the pair being cradled gently by Uncle Steve next to her – and before she takes a sip, she bends her nose eagerly into the drink, soaking up the warmth of the spices and the outlandish fruitiness of it.

“What’s this, Danno?”

He reaches for another pot while reaching for Uncle Steve’s cup and the pungent scent of alcohol quickly tells her that there’s a kid-friendly drink for her, and one for the grown-ups. It’s alright with her. Alcohol is icky.

“ _Glühwein_ ,” Danno says quietly. “ _Nonetta_ brought it from overseas and I happened to have the perfect amount of fruit lying around and just waiting for it.”

It’s sticky and sweet in her mouth when she takes a sip from it, warm in her chest when she swallows and even then she can still taste the sugar and the all-spice. And it’s with a pang of _something_ that she remembers _Granonetta_ , remembers Aunty Franche and the warm cavern of their home. Remembers coming in from a chilly November day, face flushed from the cold and lips cracking under the heat in the living room. Remembers the fruity teas _Granonetta_ would make special just for her while they would sit down to read – or in her case, be read to – on those days when evening came quicker.

“Danno?”

Her voice wobbles even in her own ears, cracks under the heaviness of missing her people and before she has said it properly – Mommy always tells her to _say_ what she _means_ , because _Mommy can’t read your mind, dearest_ – Danno is already a cushion of warmth around her shoulders and a pair of strong arms pulling her onto his lap. The Santa Suit scratches her cheek when she turns, but his hands are soft and warm just like she remembers.

For a moment, he says nothing. Just holds her in the quiet that has settled around the table. But then he reaches for Steve’s cup of mousse and, under their watchful eyes, smears a very deliberate streak of the desert on the nose of Uncle Steve.

“Retaliation,” Danno declares. “We’re even now and you’ll have your coffee in the future if you let this stick.”

Uncle Steve gives him a look that speaks of pay-back, but he doesn’t move. Other than filching Danno’s cup and pointedly sticking his spoon into the unblemished mousse. When Grace catches his eyes, he winks, chocolate still melting on the tan protrusion of his nose.

From their left, Aunty Kono filches Mrs. Hoppy and carefully deposits her in Grace’s arms with a kind smile that feels exactly like the tightness in Grace’s throat.

“ _Mele Kalikimaka,_ Grace,” she says softly before turning and wiping Chin’s nose with her own mousse. Uncle Chin, for his part, only lifts his brow at her antics, because Aunty Kono is already spooning into her desert and humming around it with a contented smile.

“ _Mahalo_ ,” she mutters between the ears of Mrs. Hoppy and Danno’s arms squeeze around her.

* * *

Kamekona looks. Eats and hums around the _haole’_ s food that tingles in the tips of his fingers with something he can remember from his own Aunty.

+++

Danny is up ridiculously early the next day, considering that the last straggler hadn’t even left the house really. Steve, in true fashion, had waited Rachel out and then stayed until even Kamekona had hit the streets at around midnight. Had helped clean up and had then, helpfully, unearthed a six-pack of Longboards to have with a small bag of gummy candy. It had fizzled strangely on his tongue whenever he’d take a swig of the beer and they’d sat quietly in the aftermath of their _ohana-_ dinner, limbs loosening and eyes drooping until – he remembers this very clearly – his body had given up on him first and he’d tilted sideways into the solid shoulder of his partner.

Sometime in the night, they’d moved around enough for Danny to end up horizontal, between Steve’s legs, back complaining about the deep stretch of having his hipbone placed on the couch-cushions, while his head had rested comfortably on the wide chest of his partner.

Steve is still out when an itch for wakefulness moves Danny into the land of the living, coming to under the heavy weight of the man’s arm around his upper body. Holding him close like a plushy, hold firming when Danny had turned his head to find the alarm clock by his bed-side.

He doesn’t groan, because all that Steve, himself, does is a quiet snuffle-shuffle. In which he curls up, hand unconsciously moving from Danny’s back to his nape and back down again and Danny moves away carefully, feeling the absence of his partner’s body in the morning chill of his own. It’s this, he tells himself, why he moves to cover Steve with a light fleece blanket – because even if SEALs might have been trained to suffer all conditions and yet _sleep_ , in his house, Steve shouldn’t have to.

His partner groans quietly, fingers reaching for something, before they tangle in the fringed edges of the blanket and Steve rolls back into quietude and sleep.

Danny is still awake.

* * *

“Nonetta,” he greets with a surprised question when his phone vibrates urgently in his back-pocket, a call that takes him from his brainless browsing for _oatmeal_ – of all things, Steve.

“ _Daniele, caro mio. Come va?”_

He grins, grabbing the gluten-free oatmeal Steve had left with him the last time he’d stayed over and despaired at the state of Danny’s cupboards, reaches for a handful of Kiwis and a leftover of Bananas and Raisins ( _raisins, Steven_ ).

“ _Sto bene, Nonetta_. Had a few people over yesterday. _Anche Grazia_.”

“ _Ah, mi fa piacere, caro mio. Hai cucinato?”_

“ _Sí, certo. Nonetta Speciale.”_

“ _The Recipebook?”_

Danny smiles at his percolator. “No, Nonetta. Memory.”

A crinkle at the other side of the line. _“The trout?”_

“Yeah. This island has spectacular fish after all.”

“ _It was good?”_

Danny thinks back. Thinks of Chin’s working jaw – thinks of his gleaming eyes – thinks of Kono’s mousse on his nose. He thinks of Kamekona’s quiet laughs and his non-complaints at the food. Remembers Steve explaining thermal updraft to Grace. Grace in his lap.

He hums a sound of agreement into the receiver. “Grace missed you,” he says then. “Had a moment of… realization I suppose. I don’t happen to have the recipe for your stuffed apples in the book do I?”

Nonetta takes a moment and the brushing sounds as if she’s shaking her head, hair swishing over the receiver on her end of the line. _“I don’t think so, caro mio, but I can certainly send it to you if you’d like.”_

“I might,” he replies quietly, throws a look at Steve – turning on his couch with a quiet huff, pulling the blanket tighter around himself and burrowing away from the light emerging through Danny’s windows. “Is there something I can do for you?” he asks then, “Since you called so early in the day.”

“ _It’s nine in the morning,_ ” Nonetta says calmly, “ _I’ve waited a few hours on you, my boy.”_

His coffee swishes in his cup, quietly and expectantly, eyes on Steve. Still and breathing, hands curled into the fringes as if holding someone’s hand. Danny takes a sip from his cup.

“ _We could use your help, my boy,”_ Nonetta finally says. _“It’s Saint Stephens Day and our neighborhood has a few who could need it.”_

Danny’s eyes glue themselves back to the Steven in his own vicinity and hums around a mouthful of coffee.

“I can send you some physical help as well if that’s needed,” he offers, semi-resigns himself to a day of trance and not-being-there with a hesitant tremble of anxiousness and wanting to get it right. Doing it proper-like.

“ _That would be appreciated, if possible. Send them to the shop, Francesca will remain indoors for the time being,”_ Nonetta concurs.

“Very well,” he agrees. “I’ll do my best, Nonetta. _Ti voglio bene, Nonetta mia. Mele Kalikimaka._ ”

“ _And I you, caro mio. Buon Natale. Stai attento. ”_

“ _Sempre, Nonetta_. _Bacio_.”

“ _Bacio!”_

* * *

Steven is cursing in his shower-cubicle when Danny puts the phone on speaker and dials from memory.

Shaw picks up at the third ring. Ruff greeting and background creaking telling Danny more than he’d needed to know. Jim’s not a bad guy but he has the manners of a lug. And the boundaries of Steve McGarrett now that he thinks about it.

Likely the man had drawn out yet another case and gone to have ‘a quick lie down’ in the bunks meant for officers on night-call. Also likely that he hadn’t done it without the help of some contraband second-grade hooch from his ankle-strap.

[Danny still can’t believe that the thing had saved the man’s life and career once but he’s been present. He has the unfortunate pleasure of nodding along to stories and shrug his shoulders with the words ‘I know it sounds crazy, man. But I’ve been there and I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.’]

“I remember,” he says gently in lieu of greeting, “ _distinctly_ , saving your hairy butt, Shaw.”

It takes his former partner to register the lilt of his voice and place it properly after what had probably not been a good night’s sleep. Danny knows exactly when Jim manages to connect the dots because he groans displeased and if he were still lying down, he’d probably be turning around in bed and reaching for the flimsy covers to pull up higher.

“ _Fuggoff, Williams,”_ the man grouches, voice rough and gravely.

Danny knows better than to take the insult personally. He hums easily instead, “I will once you agree to my terms of payback.”

“’ _s too early for this shit, Williams,”_ Jim groans again. But if Danny knows one thing, it’s that Jim is practically incapable of saying no. Especially when it came to evening scores and Danny has quite a few IOUs open with the rough Detective. _“Fugg, le’s ‘ear-it.”_

“Good,” Danny hums again – like there was ever another possible outcome. In his bathroom, the shower shuts off and Steve curses under his breath after a loud rattle. “My Aunt, Francesca, is going to be waiting. I’ll text you the address. And I’ll know if you lie to me, Jimmy.”

He doesn’t really, but he has a feeling that Nonetta will find a way to somehow cross Jimmy’s path in the next few weeks if he doesn’t show up and for all that Jimmy is a cantankerous bat on his best days, Nonetta has always held an inexplicable sway over the man.

“ _Ah know, ah know. Fuggit but ah wouldn’t dream of teasin’ them ladies.”_

“Yeah, yeah. Scaredy-Shaw,” he teases. An imitation of the heated way he would sometimes poke at the composure of the man in order to have at least one good argument that would devolve into screaming and insult-hurling. Back then it was one of the very few things that would raise his pulse anymore – that would prove to him that he was still alive.

Steve is stumbling out of his bathroom, trailing steam like smoke after him, still toweling his hair and shooting the room an annoyed glance over his half-turned shoulder. It comes to him that he has way better things to raise his pulse nowadays.

“ _Fuggoff, Williams,”_ Shaw grouses through the speaker, awake now and probably trudging towards the station’s coffee kitchen. _“Merry fuck’n Chris’mas.”_

“And to you, my friend,” he says without lie. He thinks of saying something else but Jimmy has already put down the phone and all he gets is the sound of disconnection. He’ll just have to find another way to pay the man back.

Steve’s eyebrow is somewhere beyond his hairline at the rough greeting and when Danny puts the phone down to finally turn for the percolator, the smile in his eyes has spread to his mouth.

“No wonder you’re so loquacious when that’s who you surround yourself with, Danno,” he tuts with a smirk and Danny has a moment of whispering, _gentlegentlegentle_ to the powder before he closes the top of the percolator over the bottom and screws it shut.

“Jimmy an’ I could yell at each other for ages, ‘s true,” he nods, hums _successsuccesssuccess_ to the cinnamon and the butter, “and we had _nothin’_ on our Chief.”

+++


End file.
